The Portraits

The ‘Serving Country’photographic exhibition, serves to acknowledge and recognise the valuable contribution of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander servicemen and service women who have served or who are serving in the Australian Defence Force. Uncle Roy Mundine (pictured) is the Australian Army’s inaugural Indigenous Elder. The exhibition continues to grow, and Belinda Mason and Dieter Knierim are travelling across Australia inviting participants to join the series. There now has over 185 participants from across Australia. They worked closely with Department of Veterans’ Affairs, City of Sydney, Babana Mens Group to research and travel across Australia from Cairns to Perth and Melbourne to Darwin, and many small communities in between to photograph more than 150 participants for the project. Theexhibition serves as a platform for sharing of stories, both inspiring and devastating. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander diggers have served our nation for more than a century – from South Africa and Gallipoli, the trenches of Belgium and France, and the battlefields of Korea and Vietnam, to the rocky deserts of Afghanistan. The exhibition highlights the fact that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders served in Australia’s defence forces even before they were granted the most basic rights of citizenship in the late 1960s.